LCHM Spring 2017 - 15

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L C M E D S O C .O R G

As the ER nurses heard the word "baby" they snapped to
attention and virtually trampled over the father to get to the
car to attend to the mother and child. I helped the father to
his feet and arrived at the ambulance bay to find the mother
fully reclined in the passenger seat with a new baby wrapped in
the father's shirt. As I clamped the umbilical cord and checked
the mother's vital signs I simultaneously asked what happened.

You have
a choice.

The mother responded, "We live in Whitehall and this is our second
baby. I started to have contractions and since the first labor lasted
12 hours we decided to wait. The contractions began to come
quicker and I told my husband we should go. While driving down
MacArthur Boulevard I told him to pull over. He pulled over into
the parking lot of the Kiddie City toy store, I delivered the baby
and we wrapped it in his shirt and drove here as fast as we could."
I asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?" Both parents responded that
the baby looked just like their daughter when she was born.
As I removed the shirt from the baby to confirm a diagnosis,
I explained there was a better way to identify the sex of the
baby. I congratulated them on the birth of their son. The
new family was transported quickly to the maternity ward.
The nurses' grapevine had broadcast that everyone was doing
fine after the evening's unusual events. An hour or so later,
the father, who was now dressed in a scrub shirt, arrived
to complete some papers for admission. I congratulated
him again on his expanding family but I needed to inform
him of some concerns. "I hate to tell you this but your car
is trashed." He responded, "That's ok, it's a company car."
A few years ago I awoke listening to CAT country music on the
radio. A caller was on the line speaking to the DJ. He was excited to
announce that it was his 25th birthday and that he had been born in
the Kiddie City parking lot. I was happy for him and felt fortunate
that I had picked a career that had allowed me to witness this event.
A night in the ER to remember.
John D Nuschke MD FACP is an internist at Lehigh Valley Internists a division
of MATLV. He is on staff at Lehigh Valley Hospital.

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SPRING 2017 | Lehigh County Health & Medicine 15
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of LCHM Spring 2017
